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Both Ken Starks and I have full plates, rhetorically speaking, when it comes to things we’re doing, things we’re planning to do, and things we’re actually getting done in the FOSS realm.

The up side of this is that things are getting done and we’re both staying out of trouble — although I can only speak for myself on the latter. The down side is that, in these busy days, I don’t get to talk to Ken as much as I’d like. But my good friend from the great state of Texas (no, that’s not sarcasm, Ken. Honest) passed on an interesting link that I think deserves special mention.

As most of you know, Ken gets Linux/FOSS boxes in the hands and homes of underprivileged kids in the Austin area through the HeliOS Project. He and I also organized the Lindependence event back in Felton and, as mentioned here in an item back in 2008, he and I are living breathing proof that Linux/FOSS works across political lines for a greater good.

Meanwhile, back at the original point of this blog, Ken passed on a link to something I find very interesting and something that needs to be shared, if not actually built upon.

The link in question is for TexOS, the Texas Open Source Project. The Texas Open Source Project, according to its site, “is working with local, non-profits in the San Angelo, Texas, area to provide technology to students who don’t have access to it at home.”

San Angelo is almost smack dab in the center of Texas — if “smack dab in the center” were me aiming a dart at the bull’s eye of the Lone Star State and being where the dart ends up (just to the left) after I tossed it — just West-Northwest as the crow flies of Austin.

Looking at the “About TexOS” page, the project encompasses a FOSS mentality, especially in providing “low cost access to educational and other useful software for all other purposes.” That’s where we — those who advocate for, and use, Linux and FOSS — come in.

A good example of this is the item posted about how TexOS used LibreOffice and Kalzium, a KDE program, for a school project. This combo is one of may ways that FOSS can be used in an educational setting providing free — as in beer and freedom — software to the classroom/student environment.

The folks at TexOS hold workshops to go with the placement of hardware, so users get a head start with their new machines. This is a definite plus for the kids — who are, according to one report, ages 10-13 — where they get an idea of what they’re getting into with FOSS. They’ve held two so far, with the third coming this Saturday.

This looks like a great program, and I would like to think that Linux/FOSS advocates will take a close look at TexOS as a blueprint in getting the same kind of program promoting Linux/FOSS in their own community.

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and has just started developing software in his new home office. Watch this space.)